The Great Game of Genocide

Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians

Donald Bloxham

Nuanced, subtle, and non-partisan account of the Armenian genocide

New assessment of the role of the great European powers and the USA in the genesis, course, and the aftermath of the genocide

Publishing to coincide with the 90th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide on 24 April 2005

The Great Game of Genocide

Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians

Donald Bloxham

Description

The Great Game of Genocide addresses the origins, development and aftermath of the Armenian genocide in a wide-ranging reappraisal based on primary and secondary sources from all the major parties involved. Rejecting the determinism of many influential studies, and discarding polemics on all sides, it founds its interpretation of the genocide in the interaction between the Ottoman empire in its decades of terminal decline, the self-interested policies of the European imperial powers, and the agenda of some Armenian nationalists in and beyond Ottoman territory. Particular attention is paid to the international context of the process of ethnic polarization that culminated in the massive destruction of 1912-23, and especially the obliteration of the Armenian community in 1915-16.

The opening chapters of the book examine the relationship between the great power politics of the 'eastern question' from 1774, the narrower politics of the 'Armenian question' from the mid-nineteenth century, and the internal Ottoman questions of reforming the complex social and ethnic order under intense external pressure. Later chapters include detailed case studies of the role of Imperial Germany during the First World War (reaching conclusions markedly different to the prevailing orthodoxy of German complicity in the genocide); the wartime Entente and then the uncomfortable postwar Anglo-French axis; and American political interest in the Middle East in the interwar period which led to a policy of refusing to recognize the genocide. The book concludes by explaining the ongoing international denial of the genocide as an extension of the historical 'Armenian question', with many of the same considerations governing modern European-American-Turkish interaction as existed prior to the First World War.

The Great Game of Genocide

Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians

Donald Bloxham

Table of Contents

Introduction: Genocide and the Armenian CasePart I: Mass Murder in an International System 1. Prologue: Eastern Questions, Nationalist Answers2. Ethnic Reprisal and Ethnic CleansingInterlude. The Genocide in ContextPart II: International Response and Responsibility in the Genocide Era 3. Imperial Germany: A Case of Mistaken Identity4. Ethnic Violence and the Entente 1915-23Interlude. New Minority Questions in the New Near EastPart III: From Response to Recognition? 5. The USA: From Non-Intervention to Non-Recognition66. Epilogue: the geopolitics of memoryBibliographyIndex

The Great Game of Genocide

Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians

Donald Bloxham

Author Information

Donald Bloxham is currently Lecturer in Twentieth-Century History at the University of Edinburgh. Previously he was a Leverhulme Special Research Fellow at the University of Southampton and Academic Research Director of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

The Great Game of Genocide

Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians

Donald Bloxham

Reviews and Awards

"This is the most complete, best researched and best-documented of several recent books examining the Armenian genocide of 1914-16."--Stand To! The Journal of the Western Front Association

"Donald Bloxham's critical analysis and iconoclastic contentions make this a very important book and, with the events in Darfur, Sudan, as a contemporary background canvas, a very timely one as well. I highly recommend The Great Game of Genocide to both scholars and readers interested in the destruction of the Armenians."--Middle East Journal

[Bloxham] offers a broad historical account of Armenian relations with the Ottoman Empire leading up to the 1915 deportation orders and the ensuing massacre. A penultimate chapter offers a penetrating review of official and unofficial US responses from the time the massacres were taking place to the present.--Foreign Affairs